Ch.8282. Pyramid of Inti-Ra (4)

# Sphinx.

A mythical creature from Greek and Mediterranean legends, typically described as having a lion’s body, a human head, and eagle’s wings—a human-faced lion that poses riddles.

And the “monster” Sphinx in Dungeon & Adventure is classified as a Magical Beast, ranking among the upper echelons of 2nd-tier creatures, a fierce and ferocious beast with magical powers, but…..

The Sphinx summoned now as this dungeon’s hidden boss was a different specimen from the ordinary Sphinx.

It was an Andro Sphinx, a high-tier 1st-grade entity.

The typical Sphinx was a beast with a brown lion’s body, eagle wings, and a human head adorned with a majestic lion’s mane instead of hair.

The Andro Sphinx, on the other hand, not only had a deep dark brown body but was also adorned with Egyptian-style ornaments and decorations of alternating brilliant blue and gold. Most distinctively, it wore a golden mask with strong Egyptian features on its face.

Unlike the common Sphinx classified as a Magical Beast, this was a type of Outsider—not a being of the material world—possessing a weak divinity.

A divine beast, literally a beast of the gods—a description more fitting than any other.

And at the very moment this Andro Sphinx, which could only be described in such terms, charged forward with a roar as part of its opening pattern.

KWAAANG───!!!

Leaping from my standby position into the air, I immediately descended as if stomping on the atmosphere itself, swinging my hand at the Sphinx’s wing.

───Slash.

[■■■■■■■■■───!!!!]

With the sound of flesh being cut, one of the Andro Sphinx’s wings fell to the ground. The creature, suddenly left with only one wing, let out a horrific scream mixing rage and pain.

HWRRRRRRRR!!!

Using that scream as a medium, it instantly summoned storms of flame—Fire Storms—around it and shot them toward my wolf avatar.

KWAAANG───!!

“·····Hahah!”

Leaping up again with enough force to create a thunderous sound, I smiled at the sensation of exhilaration coursing through my body as I threw myself beyond the flames.

This is fun.

“HAHAHAHA!!!”

This is incredibly fun.

“■■■■■■■■───!!!”

GRRRR!!

The struggle, the fight, carving out pieces of that creature’s flesh, dodging lightning and flames—everything about this battle is so immensely enjoyable that I want to fight even more fiercely right now.

Is it because combat is so pleasurable? In the process of attacking this Sphinx and leading it to death, pleasure, joy, and excitement flood my brain.

As my body rejoices almost screaming with delight at the enormous amount of pleasure felt in this bloody battle.

‘Is this what they call the fighting instinct? It’s more intense than I expected.’

Apart from my body’s state, a part of me that maintained rationality was calmly assessing the wolf avatar’s current situation.

In short, the cause appears to be the “Fighting Instinct” skill possessed by the wolf avatar’s race, Fenrir.

In the game, it was a type of passive skill that provided significant stat buffs and probabilistic skill power enhancements, with even a low chance of nullifying opponent’s techniques.

For some reason, after crossing over to this side, its effect has changed slightly… no, significantly.

It’s similar to the “Blood-Drinking Instinct” skill of vampire lineages.

In the game, it was simply a passive where drinking blood gave a buff for a certain period, while not drinking for a long time resulted in a debuff. But in this world, it became a craving and deficiency for blood engraved on the soul, true to its setting.

Similarly, the Fighting Instinct, possessed mainly by beast races or those instinctively seeking battle, is likely the cause of this wolf avatar’s current frenzy.

Well, that doesn’t seem to change things much.

This particularly violent and seemingly crazed behavior is just a reaction from this body not having fought enough.

Once I let it rampage like this, it should be quiet for a while.

As I thought, letting it fight properly like this should solve the problem.

[AWOOOOOOOO───!!]

‘Ah, it’s over.’

And while I was thinking that, I realized the fight had already ended.

The avatar, now with its instincts strongly manifested and transformed almost into a four-legged giant wolf, was howling while standing on top of the Andro Sphinx’s corpse.

※ ※ ※

After that rather violent and feral beast hunt ended.

‘Oh, this turned out better than expected.’

I was satisfyingly observing the rewards, which were far superior to what I had anticipated.

There were enough gold coins to crash the holy city’s economy if released all at once, but the core was, of course, the reward for defeating the hidden boss, the Andro Sphinx.

First, a necklace with the ability to summon a Sphinx.

A one-time equipment that drops guaranteed when defeating an Andro Sphinx solo, allowing you to freely command a 2nd-tier monster, a Sphinx, for one hour.

Considering that skills to summon high-tier monsters are quite rare, this equipment, despite being one-time use, is quite valuable for its ability to summon spontaneously.

Meanwhile, the second core drop item is even more extraordinary.

It’s classified as body equipment (armor), and it’s a 4LV item, treated as legendary equipment.

The wearing condition is simply being a female of advanced rank or higher, making it accessible to anyone, and despite being cloth equipment for magic users, it has excellent basic stats—a masterpiece.

It’s the hardest to obtain among the equipment sets from continuous Andro Sphinx hunting, a white dress in ancient Egyptian style…..

‘….How am I supposed to make someone wear this?’

How should I put it?

Even in pixel art, it had so little fabric that it gave the impression of being flesh-colored….

Regardless of its performance being perfect for a rear-line priest like Lisa, giving something like this carelessly would lower my trustworthiness as a human being—it was an outfit so embarrassing that I questioned whether it could function as everyday clothing.

Black strings and metal pieces barely covering private parts, with cloth adding a bit more coverage…. frankly speaking, except for the cloth wrapped around the waist and coming down between the legs, and the short cape that comes as a set with the equipment….

The back was practically naked—in some ways, it was a more malicious design than a micro bikini.

Oh, and for reference, ancient Egypt didn’t have underwear or anything like that.

While the lower classes who had to work wore tough and thick clothes, the upper classes often just covered their private parts and wore see-through garments.

So while it might not be historically inaccurate, it was undeniably an embarrassing outfit to wear.

No, it was actually this bad even after going through one round of censorship from real-world clothing.

Of course, if this were in the game, I would have just thought “what a sexy outfit” and equipped it on a character or companion without a second thought, but….

‘……..This is a bit.’

Virtual and reality are clearly separate.

To our cute Lisa, with whom I’ve had a relationship spanning several years, and whom I treat almost like an adopted daughter…. to just make her wear this?

‘Not a chance, no way!’

I can’t arbitrarily make Lisa wear something that I doubt can even fulfill the role of covering the body, nor can I give it to anyone else.

‘……..But the performance is really good.’

Just as I’m about to close my eyes and give up, the excellent performance of the equipment tempts me.

4LV, a whole 4LV equipment.

Even if the options were terrible and there were demerits when equipped, 4LV equipment would be considered for use for that reason alone.

Moreover, this Greek-style dress, apart from its questionable appearance, had no particular demerit options and had performance perfectly suited for a rear-line priest.

Two solutions came to mind.

One was to simply get a ring that hides equipment and give it to her.

The equipment had good options as well as inherent performance, so even if only the option effects were applied due to the equipment-hiding ring, it wouldn’t be completely useless.

The other method was to just close my eyes, have her wear it, and then cover it with other clothes.

After a simple test with my avatar:

When equipping overlapping armor, the first equipped item takes priority in effect.

That is, if you wear metal armor over cloth equipment, strangely only the cloth equipment’s performance applies, so using this, I could somehow manage the appearance itself.

As it happens, this ancient Egyptian style dress could pass as an undergarment if viewed casually. If I added extra cloth and covered it with a priest’s robe, it would be reasonably acceptable.

……..And at that time, I didn’t know.

That this silk underwear-like outfit, despite being remodeled, would one day become part of the priestly formal attire.